


Kakashi's Apprentice

by Right2nowthen



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, BAMF Women, ClosetNerd!Sakura, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto)-centric, F/M, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, M/M, Multi, Strong Haruno Sakura, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 14:34:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13483521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Right2nowthen/pseuds/Right2nowthen
Summary: In which Kakashi and Sakura hit the road and everything changes. A/N: Indefinite Hiatus due to lack of plot. Sorry guys.





	Kakashi's Apprentice

He stood before the memorial stone, hands in his pockets and single eye staring unseeingly.  
Sasuke had abandoned the village and Naruto had left with Jiraiya.  
For the first time in a long time, he didn't know what to do. He couldn't even speak to his departed teammates he was so out of sorts.  
He had failed another team.  
Couldn't keep Sasuke in the village, even though he'd been the one to understand the boy best.  
Couldn't protect Naruto from Akatsuki.  
Couldn't even teach Sakura without thinking of her dying in agony like Rin.  
He'd just wanted them to be better than his team. He'd wanted them to form strong bonds first, thought they'd have plenty of time to learn after they matured in the chuunin exam.  
And how well did that work out for him? They would have all been killed by Gaara during the invasion if Jiraiya hadn't taught Naruto summoning.  
He grit his teeth.  
He was left with the ruins of his team and it was no one's fault but his own.  
Drowning in guilt, Kakashi longingly thought of his ANBU days, where emotion didn't matter and he could submerge himself in missions.  
He should rejoin. The village needed him after so many shinobi had been lost.  
He clenched his fists. At least this way Sakura would be as far away from him as possible. She could find a new instructor. She'd be better off.  
Even as he rationalized, the pit of his stomach sank. He knew Sakura. She would be crushed by this. Losing her entire team...he knew what that was like. Even if it was for her own good, could he do that to her?  
He warred with himself briefly before realizing, in a brief moment of self reflection, that if he abandoned her now it would become yet another of the many things he would always feel guilty about.  
Even filled with self-recrimination, he didn't want any more regrets.  
He knew what he needed to do.  
\--  
"I'll get it!"  
She called to her mother in the kitchen as she walked to open the door.  
A head of poofy silver hair greeted her.  
"Yo."  
Sakua blinked.  
"Kakashi-sensei, what are you doing here?"  
She immediately cringed at how rude that sounded. Kakashi however, was unphased.  
"I'm here to tell you that I'm taking you on as my apprentice and that we'll be going on a training trip of indeterminate length starting tomorrow. Pack light, meet me at the gate at 0600. Oh and Sakura?"  
The girl just stared at him, blinking owlishly.  
He smiled at her cheerily.  
"Don't be late~."  
Sakura numbly stood at the door for minutes after before abruptly turning to go tell her parents the good (bad?!) news.  
\--  
"Hokage-sama."  
Tsunade cocked an eyebrow at him.  
"You used the door."  
Kakashi hmmed.  
She sighed longsufferingly at him.  
"What do you want brat?"  
Kakashi stood up straight, focus firmly on his leader.  
"I've come to ask permission to take Haruno Sakura on as my apprentice and to take her out of the village on a training trip until the next chuunin exam."  
Tsunade's eyebrow twitched.  
"We need all the active jounin on missions, brat, you know that."  
Kakashi nodded seriously.  
"I'll take her on A ranks with me and if you need me for an S-rank I'll leave her with my ninken."  
Now Tsunade's brows furrowed with concern.  
"Are you sure that's a good idea, Kakashi? She's only a genin."  
Kakashi smiled.  
"She's been on A ranks before and unlike her teammates Sakura has a level head on her shoulders."  
They shared a grim look at the brief mention of Sasuke before Tsunade sighed.  
"Very well, I'll allow it."  
Kakashi smiled, training plans always flitting through his quick mind.  
"Thank you, Tsunade-sama."  
Tsunade just nodded back vaguely, looking a bit bemused, but at what who could tell?  
Kakashi left the office whistling.  
\--  
The next morning Sakura arrived at the gates five minutes early after a long and tearful goodbye with her parents. As chuunin they understood the demands of being the apprentice of one of the strongest ninja in the village, but they would still miss her terribly.  
After waiting only fifteen minutes Kakashi-sensei arrived and without any delay they departed.  
As they walked down the road leading from the village Sakura fidgeted a bit. She'e never spent much time alone with her sensei.  
"Sakura."  
She cocked her head to show that she was listening.  
"Yes, sensei?"  
"What is your goal as a ninja right now?"  
"To help Naruto get Sasuke-kun back."  
"How do you plan to do that?"  
Sakura bit her lip.  
"By becoming stronger."  
"What are your strengths and weaknesses?"  
Now starting to feel a little uncomfortable with all the questions, Sakura scanned the trees as she thought about her answer.  
"My strengths are that I'm smart and have good chakra control. My weaknesses are speed, strength, stamina, ninjutsu and taijutsu."  
Kakashi nodded even as Sakura's heart sunk. When she put it like that her strengths didn't sound like much.  
"We'll be working on improving your weaknesses and exploiting your strengths."  
Sakura nodded determinedly, feeling better that he hadn't commented on how weak she was.  
Kakashi-sensei sniffed the air for a second before changing direction.  
"Follow me."  
There was a small pond nearby, although Sakura had no idea how he'd known from scent alone.  
"The water walking exercise is more complicated than tree climbing since the water is always moving, which means...?"  
Sakura thought carefully before answering.  
"That the amount of chakra you need changes too."  
"Good. Give it a try."  
Sakura used a half ram handseal to focus her energy, tentatively placing one foot on the water to see how much chakra it would take initially.  
She tested the surface tension with her chakra, knowing that she needed to maintain that outer layer if she wanted to float.  
After getting a feel for the ebb and flow of the water she boldly stepped out.  
"Aah!"  
And abruptly fell in.  
Kakashi was leaning against a tree and reading and didn't look like he'd be moving anytime soon.  
Right, then.  
Sakura tried again.  
And again.  
Eventually she became aware that a big part of her problem was judging how much chakra to use initially. If it was this difficult on a pond, she didn't even want to think about walking on a river yet.  
Adding more and more chakra initially eventually did the trick and she found that the water was calm enough that she didn't have any real problems figuring it out after that.  
Barely twenty minutes after she started, Sakura stood on the water soaked but triumphant.  
"Good job, Sakura. Now go and get changed, we still have a long way to walk today."  
As they walked, Kakashi kept talking.  
"Learning the water walking exercise for you was more a matter of learning a handy skill than learning control.  
In fact, I believe your control to be so precise that we can skip to advanced chakra manipulation. What is shape manipulation?"  
"Where one manipulates the shape of their chakra outside their body."  
Kakashi hmmed in agreement.  
"Essentially correct. I want you to focus on releasing strings of chakra from your palms. You'll have to increase the amount of chakra that those tenketsu can produce at once, so it will take some time."  
While Sakura was working Kakashi lectured her on various topics, promising follow-up questions the next day. He assumed nothing beyond basic academy knowledge, which was embarrassingly accurate.  
And so their week passed. They camped out in the forest at night and Kakashi told her stories of c-rank missions he'd taken as a chuunin, using the circumstances of those missions to highlight some event of historical significance or to give examples of how missions could go badly due to poor planning or lack of teamwork, or sometimes just plain bad luck.  
He talked more in one day than he had the entire time she'd known him and Sakura marveled at his excellent memory and seemingly inexhaustible knowledge.  
And he expected her to remember every bit of information he gave her, while simultaneously staying focused on shaping chakra.  
When she exhausted her chakra he'd give her food bars until she was stuffed and then drill her on what he'd taught her until she recovered enough chakra to start shaping it again.  
It was exhausting. She slept solidly every night.  
\--  
By the end of the week Sakura could produce two inch long strings and hold them for minutes at a time before she became exhausted.  
"You're ready for the next step. Try to flatten the strings and sharpen one edge."  
Sakura blinked.  
"Are you teaching me...chakra scalpels?"  
It was one of the many techniques that their Hokage had invented. After a kunoichi had become Hokage Sakura had done her research on what kind of woman could achieve the most powerful position in Konoha. The answer was a medic ninja known for revolutionizing medicine. The list of techniques she'd created was incredibly long and her exploits in the second shinobi war nearly as. No wonder she was Hokage.  
Sakura admired Tsunade terribly and to be learning a jutsu of hers was a great honor.  
Kakashi's eye formed a pleased crescent.  
"It's an a-rank jutsu requiring excellent shape manipulation as well as chakra control to form the fine edge. It's used by senior medic ninja for surgeries."  
Sakura's eyebrows rose in astonishment.  
"How do you know it, sensei?"  
Kakashi hmmed playfully.  
"I may have had my sharingan uncovered during a field surgery."  
Sakura shook her head, but got back to work.  
Now that she knew what she was learning she was even more eager to master it quickly.  
\--  
The next day they walked through the first town on their journey. After they left the small village Kakashi asked her questions about the villagers' dress and mannerisms, the wares on sale and their prices, the state of the village, the dialect spoken and what individuals were acting suspicious or had hidden motives behind their conduct.  
It was mindboggling and for every question she missed Kakashi would explain the answer and then have her sprint without chakra, or do pushups, or a variety of other quick exercises that had her dripping with sweat in a half hour flat.  
By the end she couldn't remember anything about the village anymore and Kakashi had them run until she collapsed. She dreaded the next time they went through a village.  
Panting on the ground, Sakura looked up to find Kakashi reading. She was starting to hate the sight of those books.  
"How did you see all that while reading porn?"  
She was too tired to be as respectful as usual, but the slavedriver she called sensei didn't seem to care.  
His answer was a deceptively distracted eye smile and the turning of a page.  
Sakura rolled her eyes.  
"Get up. We still have a ways to walk today."  
Too tired to argue Sakura stook up and got started on forming her chakra scalpels.  
She no longer needed to be told that there was no walking without training. After the ordeal of the last hour, the light strain on her chakra was a relief.  
She focused on the warm chakra in her hands as she plodded forward tiredly, letting the soothing lull of her sensei's voice wash over her as she listened to an impromptu lecture about how observing the habits of a group of people could be used to blend in among them seamlessly. He also, of course, discussed the limitations of such methods.  
That night as she was getting ready to go to sleep he stopped her.  
"Every day you do physical conditioning you need to stretch before going to sleep. Otherwise it'll start impairing your flexibility."  
And he proceeded to bend her into a series of shapes that a human being had no right being forced into. She would have been uncomfortable at the close contact, but she was in too much pain to think about it.  
She passed out as soon as her head hit her bedroll.  
\--  
From then on her days settled into an increasingly familiar and agonizing pattern.  
After they broke camp in the morning they would hit the road, Kakashi somehow always knowing the topics that she needed the most work on and ruthlessly punishing her with conditioning exercises every time she made a mistake until every muscle in her body hurt and her mind felt like mush.  
Then they walked, her working on the chakra scalpel jutsu as she listened to Kakashi-sensei talk.  
After she ran out of chakra he'd taken to teaching her more complex topics, occasionally stopping to scratch something out in the dirt to help him illustrate a point or answer a question.  
This was the part of her day she enjoyed the most.  
"What do you know about fuuinjutsu, Sakura?"  
She shook her head.  
"Not much."  
He nodded pensively.  
"You should already know that my sensei was the Yondaime Hokage. He was the greatest seal master in our village's history. He also had me copy a great deal of fuuinjutsu with my eye, even if he only got the chance to actually teach me some of it.  
I've brought along a number of texts that I'm going to start teaching you from in the evenings."  
He looked at me seriously as we walked.  
"Do you know why fuuinjutsu study is so important?"  
Again, she shook her head.  
"It's because there are few fuuinjutsu masters alive and some problems can only be solved through fuuinjutsu. Existing seals too, without a master they can't be defused or altered. There are also a number of ninja that die every year because they encounter seals in the field and don't have the expertise needed to deal with them.  
The Uzumaki took a lot of that knowledge to the grave with them, but my sensei left behind enough that a determined pupil could decipher it. Part of my expectation as your shishou is that you will help me make sense of it and make sure that knowledge isn't lost to the village. You're the only one in your generation with the opportunity to do so right now."  
Sakura bit her lip nervously.  
"W-what about Naruto? He's an Uzumaki and Jiraiya-sama is a seal master, isn't he?"  
Kakashi looked sad, briefly.  
"Naruto doesn't have the attention span needed for learning fuuinjutsu. Maybe if he'd grown up with his parents he would have learned, but as it stands..."  
Sakura pursed her lips.  
"What makes you think I can help you, sensei? I don't know anything about fuuinjutsu."  
Kakashi smiled proudly.  
"That's exactly why. You're young and can offer a fresh perspective. You're also one of the most intelligent ninja in the village. Don't think I missed you getting a perfect score on the chuunin exam.  
Those were jounin level theoretical questions and you're the only one who answered even half of them correctly without cheating."  
Sakura flushed.  
"Shikamaru could have..."  
"No, he couldn't have. Although he has the intelligence for it, Shikamaru has never made a habit of learning more than is required of him. There's a reason he specializes in strategy, a topic that requires relatively little in the way of research to master. Like Naruto, he too wouldn't have the patience needed to learn a highly academic art like fuuinjutsu. At least, not without sufficient motivation.  
Sakura had one more argument.  
"But you've seen how little I know about being a ninja. If I can't even answer basic questions how am I supposed to help with something so complicated?"  
Kakashi huffed in amusement, shooting her a knowing look.  
"Just because you only know the basics in many areas doesn't mean you don't have the knowledge needed to learn fuuinjutsu. Given your performance on that test I'd say you have more than a passing interest in math and the sciences, hmm? Just how many hours have you spent studying subjects that have little use in the field?"  
Sakura blushed an even darker shade of crimson at being caught out. Even her parents were carefully unaware of her hobby. Her reading habits were neither useful to her as a ninja nor suitable topics for an eligible bride. She'd guiltily thought those wasted hours of study would have shamed her if anyone knew about them.  
"Maa, Sakura-chan there's no need to be embarrassed. Fuuinjutsu is a highly logical and mathematical discipline. In addition to that, your chakra control makes you an obvious choice for medical studies, which are highly scientific. Even genjutsu requires a good knowledge of anatomy to be truly effective, and you're a genjutsu type as well."  
He stopped walking and looked at her dead in the eye.  
"You shouldn't be ashamed of your hobby, especially when it involves appropriate areas of study to make the most of your talents."  
Sakura, shocked, slipped into silence to mull over his words and for once Kakashi didn't bother her with more training, instead letting her think for the rest of the afternoon without interruption.  
By the end of the day she had reached a startling conclusion. Kakashi-sensei didn't think her nerdiness was enough to get in the way of her being a field ninja, which was obviously what he was teaching her to be.  
It was like a revelation. Timid, nerdy Sakura-chan with no practical skills could use her intelligence to learn disciplines that would supplement her combat abilities and make her more specialized and maybe even more useful than her conventional comrades. What she'd thought of as a weakness could become a strength.  
After all the Godaime had become an S-ranked combatant with a supplementary specialty, hadn't she?  
It was a dangerously arrogant thought to compare herself to the Godaime Hokage in any way, but what if...?  
The little voice in the back of her mind that she usually silenced these days was whispering that she could do anything and for once Sakura was out of excuses for why she couldn't.  
\--  
A week later she was finally getting used to her demanding training schedule when she had a breakthrough concerning the chakra scalpel technique.  
She realized that the edge of the blade could actually be formed separately from the rest. That way a single, impossily thin stream of chakra made up the cutting edge while the flat part of the blade provided the cohesion needed to maintain the shape of the blade outside her body.  
The two portions would combine with each other the further from her they got, but it would be only a matter of practice to extend her range.  
She first created the sharp edge, using the smallest amount of chakra she could continuously release from her tenketsu. Predictably it didn't maintain its form outside her body.  
Then, separately but from the same tenketsu she released a much stronger stream of chakra, struggling to maintain the two treads simultaneously. Even though she managed it she could only do it in one hand and the scalpel was only an inch long.  
Still, it was a success.  
When they stopped next to refill their canteens she casually swiped her hand across the bark of a nearby tree. As she inspected the incredibly fine cut, Kakashi suddenly appeared, peering over her shoulder curiously.  
Sakura jumped in surprise.  
"Congratulations. Now you need a five inch blade that you can use with both hands at the same time."  
After that bland pronouncement he went back to his book and if she hadn't started to understand his personality in the past few weeks she would have thought that he didn't care.  
She smiled for the next mile of their journey.  
Incidentally, that was also the day they got their first a-rank mission from the Hokage.  
\--

So I've totally been working on this instead of Konoha no Sakura. Oh well. I needed to take a break from it after writing 9000 words in less than a week. The next chapter is partially written and should be out this weekend.

This story is basically one extended training montage with two characters, so it's really easy to write. It also allows me to use ideas that have already ended up on the cutting room floor from KnS. Let me know what you guys think.

Oh, fyi there is a story on ao3 that has a similar beginning that was published recently. I shamelessly admit to being inspired by that story, although this isn't the first time I've started a Kakashi-trains-Sakura-during-the-time-skip story so I'm not going to credit them directly. More like they just reminded me of how much I liked the idea in the past.

Anyway, until next time.

-Sade


End file.
